Craft To Culture

I have been thinking today about the relationship of craft to culture. The crafts that I work in are fiber and earth. My first love is functional ware, linens, scarves, plates, cups. For me, the hand of the craftsman is always present when you wear or use a handmade object. The difference between handmade and machine made is not so much in the beauty of the object, but in the invisible relationship to the maker. Whenever I pick up a mug made by a potter, I can feel the workmanship and the craftsmanship. For me, that is the experience and why I continue to make pots and fabric. I am certain that it is the same with wood. Just running my hand over the work being done by the craftsmen at Banner Hill puts me in touch with the person, their intention and their love of the materials. In a society longing for connections and communication, could this be a step in that direction?

~Candace Christiansen, teacher

Painting The Claudian Tree class Winter 2011

As the leaves disappear in the Catskills, my thoughts turn to winter. One of the many things that the mountains have to offer this winter, in addition to beautiful snow landscapes, are the classes at Banner Hill. During February, when thoughts turn to the coming spring as the winter continues its hold, Banner Hill School will present a very special painting class entitled Painting The Claudian Tree with Thomas Locker, Erik Koeppel, and Lauren Sansaricq.


These three painters have studied the classical painting methods of the Old Masters and are coming to Banner Hill to share their intense and beautiful studies of nature. Thomas has been working in this genre for over 50 years. Erik has painted and taught in the finest painting academies in NYC and Lauren is young, energetic, and enthusiastic having just received a fellowship at the Thomas Cole house after studying at The Grand Central Academy for the past three years. This combination of wisdom, youth, and excellence should make those gray, cold, long days of late winter disappear and leave students with many dreams until well into the spring.

~Candace Christiansen

(for description and further info. on this course, please visit www.BannerHillLLC.com)

Banner Hill School Demo at Windham Mountain

Banner Hill School demos at Windham Mtns. Autumn Affair and Homecoming, Columbus Day Weekend in Windham, New York

"On Columbus Day Weekend I had the privilege of sharing some of the work of the Banner Hill School with visitors to Windham Mountain. Under the cobalt skies, my colleagues and I made clay pots, yarn, and new friends. The colors of the furniture made at Banner Hill looked elegant against the mountain reds and oranges. Pots kept growing from the wheel and yarn from sheeps wool. What a delight for me and I think, for the many visitors." Candace Christiansen, teacher

Blog 2: The Plan

We'll I'm back. In our last blog we talked about getting the inspiration; something you saw or something you imagined to create a piece of furniture. Now that you have this idea in your head, it's time to take it to the next step. The Plan.

Once you have a project in mind, know its general dimensions, function and where an how it will fit into its final space, it is time to develop a general but detailed plan. This will be your road map for the rest of the project. It may test your initial ideas, so be flexible and be ready to make adjustments. Everybody develops their own approach with time and experience, but here are a few simple design techniques I use. And as the design takes its final form, I add in as much detail as I can. Your plan should be detailed enough that when those daily responsibilities take you away form your project for a week or a month, you'll know right where you left off. The plan is your road map.


I use three simple techniques when I design a piece of furniture. First, I do a non-scaled sketch. I will include the general surrounding of where the piece is intended to go. Second, I do two side-by-side scaled one dimensional drawings front and side. You can choose your own method on how to scale your drawings. For me, I keep plenty of large sheets of quarter inch or 5mm graph paper around (if you can get yourself to design using the metric system, you'll never go back to inches). If there is any question as to size and dimension of the space intended for your piece, do a full-scale drawing. This will eliminate any doubts with respect to the placement of the piece.

Third, once I have the side-by-side drawings complete, I do a perspective drawing that gives a two-dimensional picture of what it will look like, say, up against a wall. To do a perspective drawing is easier than described here. For this example, I used quarter inch graph paper. Arbitrarily I did the following. In the center I made a point. Using my 1/4" scale I measure vertically up 6. At the bottom point I measured out to the left 12 and then up 12 and made a mark. Back at the bottom center point I measured out to the right 8 and then up 8 vertically and made my 4th point. Once you have those points, connect the center points vertically. At the outer point connect them diagonally to the top and bottom center points. In doing so you have now created a 1/4" scale grid that you can now transfer your one-dimensional drawing to. Thus giving you a two-dimensional scaled drawing.

Well that's it for now. Next time we'll talk about the detail that goes into your road map, The Plan. Comments? Visit us at http://www.bannerhillllc.com/ and see current class listings for the Spring/Summer of 2010.

Well here we are. The Banner Hill Summer/Fall classes are posted (visit www.BannerHillLLC.com). The ski season is done. The crewing and sculling season started a month ago. But today is typical for this time of year in the Catskills, cold and damp with wet snow falling.

However, it's a beautiful day inside the warm shops and studios here at Banner Hill. And what a better day than to get the inspiration and creativity for future projects while spring takes its time getting here? I was tweeting with some friends the other day on the topic of inspiration and creativity. It seems to come unannounced and at any time. For example there is an old apple tree at the bottom of the driver way. I mean old and gnarly, bent and twisted in every direction while being very distinct and unique in its appearance. A heavy snowfall toppled it this winter and there it laid until we got it up to the shop. We cleaned it up stripped the bark off and every one who walks through comments on it beauty. And is always followed by the next question, what are you going to do with it? I don't know yet. Perhaps it will come to me while rowing this week. Not paying attention to stroke form while coach Mike chagrins that I'm not forward enough at the catch. Sorry Mike, business.

So a hand built built piece of furniture starts with the idea however it comes. Then the plan. A detailed blue print down to the joinery work. Lumber selection, milling and so on. What better way to see the process take form than following with me at the Banner Hill Blog for the next several weeks as we go from the idea to a finished piece of furniture. These blog postings will be based on a two week course later this summer entitled "Taking it to the next step".

Well, are you ready to take it to the next step? See you in two weeks. In the meantime visit our blog periodically for other postings from our ceramic studio. Hint, hint Maureen, Ruth, Lois and Candace. You can also visit us at www.BannerHillLLC.com or on facebook. It would be great to hear from you.

Kip Christie

Banner Hill Hosts An Open House!!!

Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Banner Hill Blog! Now that both the Woodworking and Ceramics programs are operating in full swing we expect to be posting blog updates regularly from week to week! Please subscribe to this blog below if you would like to receive regular updates!

So to kick things off we would like to invite you to our Banner Hill Open House! This open house will be hosted during presidents week February 13^th through the 20^th. Everyone is invited to visit the school at anytime between 10AM and 4PM. Come and enjoy some refreshments while watching demonstrations in woodworking, ceramics and more! Here are just some of the great hands on techniques you will see:

The Aspiring Woodwooder: Feb 15/19 By Kip Christie

Shaker Brench Making: Feb 19/20 By Mary LaCafe

Learning hand Building Techniques & wake up Your Muse: Feb 13/14 By Dena

Ceramics Workshop: Wheel Throwing : Feb 15/19 By Ruth Sachs

Hand Building with Clay: Feb 17/18

Children’s/ Family Day Ceramic Workshop: Feb 20

Woodworking Demonstrations Feb 19/20

Textile Demonstrations By Candace Christiansen: Feb 19/20

We would love to show you around our new state of the art studios, talk to you about courses we offer and take you through some hands on demonstrations. This will include wheel demos, hand build simple joinery work and/or glue-ups.

Saturday February 20th will be a great day at Banner Hill as we will also be featuring special guest artists, there will be a prize drawing (the winner will receive a gift certificate good toward the Banner Hill course of their choice!) and a live broad cast by WGXC! WGXC 90.7 is an aspiring radio station as we are a school. Tom Roe will be broadcasting live over the internet from noon to 4PM. You can get more info on them at www.WGXC.org.

So take a break from the every day and treat yourself to something special! We look forward to welcoming you! Please visit our website at BannerHillLLC.com for more details on the school or call 518 929 7821.

See you soon!

Kip